A special court in Pakistan on Wednesday indicted former prime minister Imran Khan and his close aide former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi in the cipher case for allegedly leaking state secrets and violating the laws of the country.

Judge Abual Hasnat Zulqernain conducted the proceedings of the case in the Adiala Jail Rawalpindi where the two leaders have been incarcerated in the case.

The judge read out the charges against the two leaders, who were present inside the courtroom, but both of them pleaded not guilty.

This was the second time that they were indicted. Earlier, they were indicted on October 23 but the process was nullified by the Islamabad High Court.

Judge Zulqernain while hearing the case on December 4 had declared that fresh indictment was mandatory in the light of the Islamabad High Court judgment which declared all proceedings illegal after ruling against the jail trial on procedural grounds.

It resulted in the fresh process to initiate an in-prison trial of the duo after completing all procedures and starting the case from the start.

The Federal Investigation Agency registered the cipher case on August 15 on the charges of violating the secret laws of the country.

The case is based on the allegation that a diplomatic document sent by the Pakistan embassy in March last year was mishandled by Khan and Qureshi and they violated the secret laws of the country.